initramfs generated before removing casper

[Oliver Grawert]

ubiquity builds the initramfs after copying the live filesystem, but before removing casper.

One consequence of this is that /conf.d/compcache is left around in the installed system's initramfs, resulting in an installed system with compcache enabled. This is unexpected: compcache should only be used by the live CD, or if the user explicitly sets a compcache size in initramfs.conf.

[kozimodo (forums-theo)]

This bug appears to extend beyond live cd systems. I have a system that I installed from the minimal iso and then installed other packages using a script (crunchbang) and compcache creates a swap space of about 512M.

[Shikaku (sarushikaku)]

Compcache was activated randomly at some point after using Ubuntu 9.04. I manually removed it myself. I know it was not on because after installing Ubuntu I manually set a swap size and manually editted /etc/fstab to use it. I found it installed at one point when I was trying to figure out one day what was taking up so much RAM, and I found my swap size was different, added by 512MB. If it helps any, I noticed it was enabled after using and installing the dependencies for this script: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1169505

I will post instructions on how to manually remove it, because disabling it will only reenable it on reboot:

To check if one has Compcache enabled run:
sudo swapon -s

If there is a ramzswap in there along with your normal swap settings it means it is enabled. To disable it:

sudo rm /usr/share/initramfs-tools/conf.d/compcache && sudo update-initramfs -u

And restart. Check to see if it is installed by running this again after rebooting:
sudo swapon -s

It should be gone now.

Instructions taken from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7268741

[Shikaku (sarushikaku)]

sudo apt-get install lupin-casper re-enables compcache on installed system.

If you want to try this yourself, install Ubuntu Jaunty or Karmic on a VM from the LiveCD and run it and check the swap using swapon -s, before and after installing lupin-casper.

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

> sudo apt-get install lupin-casper re-enables compcache on installed
> system.
>
> If you want to try this yourself, install Ubuntu Jaunty or Karmic on a
> VM from the LiveCD and run it and check the swap using swapon -s, before
> and after installing lupin-casper.
>
thats expected behavior, casper is not supposed to be installed anywhere
apart from systems running a live session. compcache was deliberately
added to casper to provide more ram in a live session ... if you
installed it on a normal desktop, you asked for having compcache
enabled, thats not a bug.

[jippie (jph4dotcom)]

I think this bug was introduced to my system when I installed remastersys, to create a LiveCD from the system.

[bornagainpenguin (bornagainpenguin)]

I just wanted to chime in that I too got bit by this bug after doing a remastersys of my Karmic install for my eeepc netbook. I'm wondering if that might be a common thread in people still having this issue?

--bornagainpenguin

[Uwe Geuder (ubuntulp-ugeuder)]

I got this problem today when installing a fresh Lucid from the 10.04 Finnish Remix CD
http://wiki.ubuntu-fi.org/Ubuntu_Finnish_Remix (sorry page is in Finnish only, but source
code is available at the bottom of the page) (also note that the 10.04 image doesn't seem
to be available from that page anymore. It has been replaced by 10.04.1 sometimes in the
last 3 days)

I assume that the Finnish Remix CD is not supported in Launchpad, so don't
read this as a formal bug report, but just as additional info to the problem,
which obviously also occurred for people not using this special CD image.

Maybe the additional info can be of some use for somebody.

[Uwe Geuder (ubuntulp-ugeuder)]

> casper is not supposed to be installed anywhere

Actually it turns out that the Finnish Remix CD installed casper for me.
Investigations ongoing why this happened.

[Uwe Geuder (ubuntulp-ugeuder)]

> Actually it turns out that the Finnish Remix CD installed casper for me.
> Investigations ongoing why this happened.

casper is contained in casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop of the Finnish Remix CD 10.04.1 This is not the case for the official Ubuntu desktop CD 10.04.1.

The problem with having casper installed and ramzswap activated is not reproducible with the official CD.

Probably people who remaster the installation CD need to make sure that they don't have casper in the casper/filesystem.mainfest-desktop file.(I admit this is a bit of speculation, because I don't know exactly how the installation in this file works.)

Repair action for those who have got bitten:

1.) sudo apt-get remove --purge casper (this will also remove the file /usr/share/initramfs-tools/conf.d/compcache mentioned in #2)

2.) sudo update-initramfs -u

3.) reboot

Summary: no problem in official Ubuntu 10.04.1 Desktop CD. Problem seems to happen commonly when remastering the CD.

[Uwe Geuder (ubuntulp-ugeuder)]

The problem has now been fixed for the Lucid 10.04.1 Finnish Remix Desktop CD.

The correct instructions are indeed at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomization

sudo sed -i '/casper/d' extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop

If I read the previous comments correctly, nobody has got this problem from a vanilla desktop LiveCD. So I guess the report is actually invalid (but I leave the status change to the original reporter or the installer team).

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ubiquity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]